I Growing Up on the Farm
II Learning to Be a
Minister, and Falling in Love
III Big Church Time,
Friendship and Coffee Talk
IV Crossing the Finish Line
V A Pastor’s Peace In Twilight YearsIntroduction…
This is the true story
of my best friend who, as one saint wrote, was not one to bow down as a
sycophant to the anonymous power of changing moods and current fashion. My friend was an unusual church pastor. His every-day behavior as a minister,
father and husband and American citizen was grounded in realism and prudence; it bore fruit for many...
What makes Rick’s biography worth reading, dear Reader? Well, when you envision how he interacted with his family; with the suffering and the disabled; elderly; with those Muslims aching for spiritual truth; and finally, how he was blessed with the peace of his twilight years, I know think you'll will want to meet Rick or at the very least, tell a loved one about him.
Rick and I first met maybe 40 years ago in his office at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Arlington Heights, Illinois. I had come to him with an annoying work problem. He listened for 15 minutes, then smiled warmly and solved my problem with this advice with "Bob, go on cruising speed.” It meant I simply had to learn patience and stop wanting to be in control of everything.
As I was to observe through the decades as a member of St. Peter, Rick was skilled in resolving disputes among his church members. It was a skill which I had learned to love during my years as a newspaper reporter (and later an editor). I often witnessed. Rick take the sage advice of Saint Augustine of Hippo: Unity in all that is necessary, freedom in all that is subject to opinion, and charity in everything.
I quickly became a busy volunteer at St. Peter--a beautiful and large Missouri Synod Lutheran church in that upper middle-class suburb of Chicago. I joined its leadership council, taught Biblical life application to children, produced the church’s first local television program, and conducted an adult Bible class called “Making the Bible Come Alive.”
During these many years, my dear wife died, and I remarried another wonderful woman, a Catholic. My friendship with Rick had a fragile moment one summer evening when Rick and his wife and I, with my wife, Mary Alice, were sitting on lawn chairs outside the famed Ravinia Festival in Highland Park listening to a concert. I was nervous about the question I was about to ask Rick.
Knowing how committed a Lutheran Missouri Synod church is to its dogmas and its disagreement with some key beliefs of Roman Catholicism, I cleared my throat, turned to Rick, and asked: “Rick, would we still be friends if I became a Catholic?” The thought of being a Catholic had been lingering in my mind and heart. It had little to with being married to a Catholic woman, but more with strong thoughts I had developed from several years of observing Catholic charity at work in countries around the world to which I had traveled as a leadership development manager for the world’s largest volunteer service organization, Lions Clubs International.
Rick looked at me with
the same simple smile he had given me when he had advised me to go on cruising
speed. He replied, “Of course we would, Bob.” He then turned his attention
back to the concert. The subject was never brought up again.
I Growing Up on the Farm, the Sprouting of Faith
Lord, for each spoonful
of this cereal
I’m putting into my
mouth right now,
Please put some like it
into the mouth
of a hungry, homeless
refugee child,
And prompt him to ask
Who first
created it. (FROM RICK)
Morning on the Richter farm normally broke with the intrusive sassing of crows on top of the barn roof. For the German shepherd Rex, who had slept the night under the back porch, it meant there would soon be food scraps from the kitchen table and possibly a leftover pork sausage, followed by a vigorous neck rub from the then seven-year-old Eldor (Rick) Richter. The 20 still-growing, snorting hogs also awaited these scraps. A cat here moved around gingerly, as if concealing some recent behavior in the barn.
Soon to rise with Rick
were his father Herman, mother Gustie, an older brother Erwin, and Rick’s
younger sister, Adeline. Two older sisters had jobs and lived in the nearby
Mississippi River town of Winona. There were trips to family's outhouse. A slow-moving line of 22 Holsteins (one would later be slaughtered for beef) approached
the barn to be milked.
Rick’s first task was to scatter grain food for fifty chickens. Oddly, the three roosters hardly ever crowed. There might be time for young Rick to play around in his sandbox with a discarded coffee can; he sometimes referred poetically to the morning son and the tin can with the nice sun is shining off the coffee can.
In southeastern Minnesota,
in the unmapped farming community of Silo, the sun on this particular mid-June morning in
1938 colored the Richter’s 125 acres of gently rolling land into a multi-facet jewel. Cows grazed on a fourth
of this land, alfalfa for hay grew on another fourth, and oats and corn
sprouted on the rest. Surrounding the Richter farm was a vast woodland of pine
and oak trees, and from the second floor
of the Richter home, one neighbor’s farm could be seen.
A prolonged draught in the early
30’s had badly wounded the soil, and the Great Depression made life worse for farmers like the Richters. The land had become depleted of lime, causing
erosion and failure of hay, corn and oats crops, forcing Herman Richter to move his cattle to a valley where it was cool and
wet. Rick’s older brother, Erwin, had persuaded his father to cultivate the farm into
contours and strips and thus prevent more erosion.
The Richter family eventually changed its cattle-raising labors to
dairy farming, mainly to pay off a farm debt caused by the worsening Great
Depression. Then more trouble: a
breeding bull was born with only one testicle; then a few heifers born with two instead of four teats; a few some still-born
calves and a badly infected hog boar. Around 1946, the
dairy herd got Bang’s disease (also
known as Brucellosis, a contagious disease caused by bacteria which causes abortions in cattle ) . “It was a sad thing,”
Rick told me, citing a proverb learned in his high school German class: Mann
must Leib and Siele susamen halten (A person must keep life and soul together.)
At 6 a.m., the family
arose one by one and renewed the joy of switching on the home's two lights; only recently had electricity come
to Silo, an in-house bathroom was
forthcoming. An engine pumped water from a windmill outside. The home had
one source of heat: a wood-burning stove in the kitchen.
With its four bedrooms
and a master bedroom on the first floor, Rick in later years would remember this
white, Gothic style home as being a “mansion.” The basement had a winter’s
supply of home-grown fruits and vegetables and canned goods preserved by Gustie. Outside stood an uninhabited small stone
dwelling known as a “frontier house” which the Richters used to smoke hams and sausages. Rick’s
grandfather once lived in this tiny abode. The house was left standing and revered for sentimental reasons.
For breakfast, Mom
frequently made pancakes and sausage. Dad prayed twice at the kitchen table,
the second prayer being the Lord’s Prayer. After breakfast, he read the Bible
to his family, as he would do until the entire Bible had been read-- then re-read. Prayers and
Bible reading did much to develop Rick’s religious faith and a life that would later help bring thousands of others in pews to the Christian faith with his sermons.
More Work, Prayers, and Worship
Rick’s father served as
a Silo Lutheran Church elder for more
than 35 years. His favorite expression was, “Thank the Lord.” During one of my
several interviews with Rick, it pleased him to mention that he never heard his
father utter a profane word. With a tear in his eye, Rick also recalled how his
father settled arguments at the Silo church by asking the arguing people to
step outside, where he proceeded to
reconcile them. Rick said his father spanked him only once, and "Today, I thank him for that spanking.”
Much of Rick’s summer afternoons were spent cultivating corn; at age 16, his brother showed him how to cultivate with a tractor instead of a hoe. He also wrestled with a hatchet, helping brother Erwin and their mother split blocks of firewood which, in winter, his father would load onto a horse-hitched bobsled and take to town three miles away to be sold for $4.50 a load. The income from this was spent on groceries. In September, Rick attended a Lutheran school in Silo and, later for eighth and ninth grades he was enrolled in a public school in Lewiston, three miles away.
In a Lutheran high
school in St. Paul, he learned Latin and Greek and went on to learn German taught
by a teacher whom Rick described as a Russian-Prussian man who “was a tough
one.”
Supper on the farm was
at 6 p.m., followed by the cows being milked. In the evening, neighbors
sometimes came over to play cards. " That was a fun time for me,” Rick
recalled, " The women would ask me to
sit on their laps ." …Another
German proverb came to his mind : Geteilte
doublte freude (Shared joy is double joy).
The Richter farming family (front row from
left ) Rick, then age 12, his mother Gustie,
father Herman, sister Esther, ( rear ) brother
Erwin, and sisters Dorothy and Adeline
Rick did double time as a father. Faith, the first born, kept a mental library ofmemories of early family life which she shared diligently with me.She said the family never complained about having to move so oftento another town. “We learned to accept this,” she said, “becausewe were always taught that the ministry came first, God came first,that there was no higher calling.” But she cried every night for ayear when the family moved from the church in Lake City. Familyvacations were often delayed because of funerals, “but we knewloved ones needed Dad during their time of grief,”
Bedtime was prayer time for the Richter family. The entire family prayed together, and Rick’s father read once more from the Bible and offered a prayer. Family members then went to their bedsides to pray individually. Rick’s daughter, Faith, recalled that when her father. Rick, was nearing his teen years, he would pray that God later in life would lead him to a Godly woman to marry. Today, Rick remembers humorously that he used to pray that God would enable him to whistle. “The next morning, I woke up whistling,” he said.
Rick and other family members prayed for their aging dog Rex on the day when they waited for a friend to return from the woods saying he had abided by their request to use a gun to mercifully put down this family's German Shepherd. No one in the Richter family had the heart to do it. “It was a sad day for us,” Rick said. “You had a sense that Rex was always protecting you.”
Sunday, of course, meant
church at 9 a.m. in Silo. The congregation usually numbered about 250 people
who came from the two surrounding communities. The church, Rick told me, had
for years possessed a “strong missionary spirit that gave birth to several
members being ordained as Lutheran pastors.” One of the pastors became a
missionary in Australia. Three of the pastors were Rick’s cousins, one becoming
president of a college in Nebraska. When the elderly pastor in Silo retired, he
was replaced by a younger man whose “preaching was powerful” and who influenced
Rick a few years later to attend a Lutheran prep school for pastors in St.
Paul.
One poignant incident about the family farm has remained in Rick's heart: it was his mother , later in life, telling him of a snowing day on January 6, 1932, when she was pregnant with him and lay on a bobsled hitched by her husband to two horses. She was transported three miles to a doctor, then driven in a car 13 miles to a hospital. There she gave birth to Rick, the youngest of the Richter clan. He was named Eldor, the name of boy friend of a sister of Rick. (She did not marry him. )
II Learning to Be a
Minister and Falling in Love
Dear Father in Heaven,
Who loves
as a father and Who has
a purpose
for each of our lives
and desires
only good for us, please
bless
and strengthen the marriages of
those I shall now pray
for…
We sat down and looked out at the
distant hills and all the nature that
surrounded us. The hills were
reverberating, and my heart was
pounding. I look Mary in my arms
and said, ‘Will you be mine?’
She said, ‘I will.’ ”
FROM RICK
After his freshman year
in public high school near Silo, it became obvious to everyone that Rick was being prompted by the Holy Spirit to live his life
as a Lutheran minister. He was 16 when his father drove him to St. Paul and
enrolled him there as a sophomore in the St. Paul Concordia preparatory school. Here he spent five years learning church history and German,
Latin and Greek. He lived in a dormitory, and on summer break, either took the
train back to Winona and from there back to work on the farm, or hitchhiked the entire 120-mile distance. After graduation,
Rick began a five-year stint at the St. Louis Concordia seminary learning the Lutheran confessions, Biblical epistles, the
Hebrew language and more Greek. To help pay for his tuition, Rick worked part-time
cleaning seminary offices. He shared a dormitory room with three other
seminarians. The professor who inspired him the most was the middle-aged Dr. Franzman who taught him, Rick said, “how to be a Christian person.” When asked in later
years what challenged him during those five years, Rick’s wife, Mary, quickly
responded in a telephone interview with me, “Nothing. I believe. He took everything in stride. He was young, strong, and motivated.”
The Courtship of Mary and Rick
For more than a
year , Rick had been dating
Mary, an attractive, empathetic woman with attentive eyes and inclined to
cheerful conversations. Her grandfather was a minister, who died when Mary’s grandmother
was pregnant with their 10th child. At one time, Mary’s mother and sisters had lived in the Silo community and would come and
sow clothes for the Richter family.
When Mary and Rick were
in college, a friend of Rick’s advised him one day about his dating Mary:
“Better look at others in the field,” the friend advised him. Rick took the advice and started dating a
few other girls, that is, he said, until " I saw a few boys getting
interested in Mary too.”
Rick and Mary’s
relationship soon bloomed. When Rick was
nearing his last year at the seminary, on a Good Friday he was driving Mary
down a road near his parent’s farm when he stopped the car. The couple got out
and went for a short walk though a forest of pine, maples, and oak. Rick waxed
poetic when recalling details of that walk. "We walked through
a woodland hillside overlooking a valley and distant bluffs. I carried Mary
over a creek. We paused in silence and gazed at an expanse of lush meadow where
my family once took our cattle to pasture. It was a beautiful day. We sat down
and looked out at the distant hills and all the nature that surrounded us. The
hills were reverberating and my heart was pounding. I look Mary in my arms and
said, ‘Will you be mine?’ She said, ‘I will.’ ”
In 1957, Mary and Rick married in his last seminary year. Rick gained 20 pounds, attributing it to “Mary being such a good cook.” Soon after their marriage, Rick began his first pastoral church assignment; three months later, Mary became pregnant with Faith, the first of three daughters . Mary assisted her husband by teaching Sunday School, adult Bible classes, and participating in fellowship activities. It caused one parish member to tell Rick, “You know something: your wife was a pastor’s wife from the womb.”
I doubt
if their marriage was ever seriously threatened; I do know that it served as a
valuable resource for many of Rick’s future marriage enrichment workshops.
Raising Family, Motivating
Congregations; Then Rick’s Crisis
Obedience also brings
about a true
formation of character and
great peace
to the soul…giving up
one’s own will
for a higher good. We
acquire true
freedom serving God
through obedience
(Francis Fernandez,
author)]
"My goal is to make
the church real in the lives of people. So often Christ is tucked away in some religious corner of a person’s life and not
in their heart. I want the rubber to hit the road of practical life. I’ve tried
to make Christ as real as when He was on earth.” ( The Rev. Richter )
Rick’s first calling as
a newly ordained Lutheran minister was to a 12-member church in the Doraville
suburb (population 10,000) of Atlanta. Rick went house to house asking people
to attend his church’s Sunday service. “The people were wonderful,” he said,
“most in their 20’s or early 30’s.” During his four and a half years there he
added a chapel and a kindergarten that eventually was attended by 60 children.
“It was beautiful,” Rick said.
During his ministry in
Lake City, Minnesota, Rick faced a crisis, perhaps the most critical one during
his life-long ministry. Rick’s father Herman was dying and, coincidentally,
Rick thought he too was dying, but from a crisis of faith. For some reason, though
he had acquired a reputation of being “firm and steadfast” in all matters of his
personal and pastoral life , Rick now was doubting his worthiness to be a pastor. As
he told me later in life, he was struggling with the doubt of being able to
live up to God's ‘Law’ and to the ordinances and commandments of his own ordination vows. He considered becoming a
carpenter.
Perhaps it’s worth noting that during our decades of
friendship, I never saw any evidence of any serious sinful behavior in my
friend’s life that might have caused him to have this paralyzing doubt. If Rick was just suffering from scrupulosity, I never
asked .
A few days later, a life-changing epiphany came to him as he was driving down a country road in Minnesota. Rick contemplated--and now fully understood surprisingly for the first time in his life--a major dogma of most Christian denominations, including his own. He knew now (he really knew) , he admitted, that God had called him to be the minister that he had now become, and that God had also justified (sanctified) him. Rick admitted that this justification was not his doing but God's .
This realization literally shook his mind, heart, and soul, he said, and never again would he suffer this kind of doubt!
After declining three
new calls from churches, Rick went to a weathered-beaten church in Anita (population
1,000), Iowa . He wanted to go where he
was needed most, to “a poor community.” His
first sight of the church was disheartening: carpeting was threadbare, hymnals
were falling apart, and the organ, he remembers, sounded like a Calliope. The
church was two-thirds filled for his debut sermon---with people “appearing
cheerless”. Rick changed that with sermons that were applicable to peoples'
lives. Having the church re-painted and new carpeting laid also put smiles on
faces. “They felt new dignity,” Rick said. “Membership grew. Lives were
transformed when we established that Christian Nursery Express, and it effected
the whole community.” Always in the pews now were the Richter’s three
daughters: Hope, Faith, and Beth. When asked if his salary was now more, Rick
replied, “We never worried about that.”
In the early days of family life, wife Mary stayed busy cleaning house and cooking meals, not only for the family but to be taken to homes of shut-ins (often widows) or hospital patients who were church members. He often brought them a gift to show there was “someone in their life who held them in his heart.” In Lake City, the sheriff would refer railroad car hobos to the Richters' home, which was five blocks away from the train station; or someone at the train depot who would tell a homeless hobo about a nearby pastor at a Lutheran church who could help. Faith remembers her mother cooking “a nice meal” for the individual, and afterwards escorting him to the basement where the man could shave and brush his teeth. Rick would then give the man a voucher for night in a motel or take him to someone with provisions for a night of undisturbed sleep.
Wrote the Clinton Herald
newspaper (September 5, 1980) in a farewell article, “His interest in
strengthening the family correlates with his overall philosophy of his
ministry.” Explaining that philosophy one day, Rick said, “My goal is to make
the church real in the lives of people. So often Christ is spiritualized right
out of life and tucked away in some religious corner of a person’s life and not
in their heart. I want the rubber to hit the road of practical life. I’ve tried
to make Christ as real as when He was on earth.
"But after four years at this church, I answered a call to a
larger congregation, knowing that if I didn’t, I’d soon fall in love with this
church and its people and stay here for
25 years.”
Perhaps his most
challenging years as a pastor came at a St. Louis church, an ultra conservative
Missouri synod church which for decades had followed a traditional format of
praying silently; it was thought that praying the litany out loud would
discomfort the congregation. Rick wanted
the format changed, but it didn't happen.
When Rick’s last Sunday
at the St. Louis church arrived nine years later, however, worship attendance had nearly doubled; he was elated when a reception was held to
honor his departure and that an overflow crowd required that the reception food supply be tripled. Rick felt that the
congregation had validated his efforts to bring change for the betterment of
their spiritual lives. " I knew we had
helped people there have a new life in Christ.”
There would be two or
more calls from churches. When asked how so many churches knew of him and were
prompted to call him, Rick said, “It was the Lord’s doing.” He would continue to “plant seeds” in a church
God had in mind.
Schism in the Synod Saddened Him
To this day, Rick
remains saddened by that tragic split in his Missouri Synod in 1974. The Schism
actually was incited in 1950 over theological differences: whether to utilize
the historical-critical method to analyze the Bible rather than the orthodox
method that considered scripture to be the inerrant Word of God.
Rick had learned, he said, a vitally important lesson for any pastor: to persevere with a congregation which opposes change. He recalled how he was sparked to learn this lesson when, as a youth sitting in the pews of a traditional Lutheran church, he became helplessly frustrated at the organist who executed long, unnecessary pauses between the notes of each hymn he played. Rick sensed that this church had become dead.”
***
During these many church moves, Mary had given birth to three girls. Rick did double time as a father. Faith, the first born, kept a mental library of memories of early family life which she shared diligently with me. She said the family never complained about having to move so often to another town. “We learned to accept this,” she said, “because we were always taught that the ministry came first, God came first, that there was no higher calling.” But she cried every night for a year when the family moved from the church in Lake City . Family vacations were often delayed because of funerals, “but we knew loved ones needed Dad during their time of grief,” Faith said.
Rick’s children in later
years would tell you that what was significantly different about their father
was how, with his night meetings, house calls with shut-ins, and all the games
he would play with them--- how he had time for all of this. There also were the nightly devotions at home
and sermons to write. Some sermons would take him 14 hours to write (not
uncommon for a Missouri Synod Lutheran minister). “Dad personally needed God to
help him with all of this,” Faith said. “It’s what centered him physically,
mentally, and spiritually.”
In his church office, Rick made time daily for prayer, sometimes in front of a marble candle holder, a gift from a worshipper. “We’d often give him a new candle on his
birthday or at Christmas,” Faith said.
In the early days of
family life, wife Mary stayed busy cleaning house and cooking meals, not only
for the family but to be taken to homes
of shut-ins (often widows) or hospital patients who were church members. He
often brought them a gift to show there
was “someone in their life who held them in his heart.” In Lake City, the sheriff would refer
railroad car hobos to the Richters' home, which was five blocks away from the
train station; or someone at the train depot who would tell a homeless hobo about a nearby pastor at
a Lutheran church who could help. Faith remembers her mother cooking “a nice
meal” for the individual, and afterwards escorting him to the basement where
the man could shave and brush his teeth. Rick would then give the man a voucher
for night in a motel or take him to someone with provisions for a night of
undisturbed sleep.
Faith said she will
never forget her father telling her about visiting an elderly woman who was
dying. “She was in a coma as Dad prayed for her, but as he prayed, he saw a
tear roll down her cheek.” Dad explained that ‘the spirit of the Lord touched
her and had now brought her comfort’. Another time he was visiting a woman who
was curled up in a fetal position. He began singing familiar hymns to her like,
What a Friend We Have in Jesus. 'She uncurled before my eyes,’ Dad said,
‘God had given her hope.”
Rick was indefatigable playing
with his three children. “He was great at teaching us how to play softball,”
Faith said, “and he taught us how to fish by first having us bait a worm on a
hook and dropping it into a bucket of water. But we didn’t like the worm part ,
so he had us try Velveeta cheese.”
Rick, so it seemed to all, experienced a second childhood
again and again, especially with games. He would pretend to be a dog and crawled inside and
then outside a large cardboard box, growling. “I was so excited when once he
came out of the box as a puppy,” Faith said laughing. After supper, Rick would
have the girls stand up and dance and sing a home-spun ditty called Three
Little Crackers, Dance All Day! Just as memorable to Faith and Beth,
and Hope were the family camping trips to the Black Hills, Grand Tetons, and
Washington, D.C.
Family activity usually
ended after supper with a family prayer and Rick reading from the Bible or the
book entitled “Having Family Devotions with Little Visits with God.” Rick also
read from a Bible called “The Cotton Patch Bible.” Noting that she and her
sisters were all born in Georgia, Faith commented that “The way this Bible was
written, you almost developed a Southern accent reading it.”
One way the girls showed
their affection for their father was when his church office was almost adjacent
to their home in Lake City and they would bring him coffee during the day and
Faith would sharpen his pencils. Did the Richter children ever need discipline? Faith laughed at the question with, “Yeah...I
mean, look what he had to work with--me. I had a lot to learn. I was given a
book about the strong-willed child.” Their
mother Mary expressed her love with cooking, sowing outfits for her daughters,
and working as a hospital nurse and insurance company clerk during two of
Rick’s assignments.
When the St. Peter
Lutheran church in Arlington Heights, Illinois, told Rick they wanted him to be
their executive pastor, Rick believed this call came truly by God’s grace. He accepted it.
Faith said she will never forget her father telling her about visiting an elderly woman who was dying. “She was in a coma as Dad prayed for her, but as he prayed, he saw a tear roll down her cheek.” Dad explained that ‘the spirit of the Lord touched her and had now brought her comfort’. Another time he was visiting a woman who was curled up in a fetal position. He began singing familiar hymns to her like, what a Friend We Have in Jesus. 'She uncurled before my eyes,’ Dad said, ‘God had given her hope.”
III Big Church Time, Friendship, Coffee Talk
“Tell me, is there anyone you’d like me to pray for?”
“It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.” (Psalm 118)
Now a veteran minister, the Rev. Eldor Richter was prepared for his last tour of duty as a head pastor. He accepted the call as executive pastor with massive responsibilities for influencing the faith of the 5,000 members of St. Peter Lutheran Church (my church at the time ) in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Moving his family to this upscale suburb of Chicago he knew would be a demanding yet rewarding change of pace for his family. Arlington Heights wouldn’t be Silo.
I didn’t know this new pastor and I would someday be close friends. On a sunny Sunday afternoon in September 1989, I walked from home to St. Peter to hear Rick’s first sermon there. I took my usual shortcut across the church’s 15 acres landscaped with red oak trees, evergreens, and clusters here and there of flowers---all in color harmony with the gardens of surrounding homes. Since 1860, the church had been growing from a ten-family congregation worshipping a few blocks away to now, a campus with a grammar school, large gymnasium, and plenty of outdoor space for athletics and picnics.
Near the long walkway leading to the front doors was a slightly abstract, weathered bronze statue, perhaps ten feet high, of the Biblical Saint Peter holding an enormously long cross with a staff in his left hand and a Bible in his right. On a nearby large boulder near the statue were etched words that Jesus said to the Saint Peter (Matthew 16:18): Thou art Peter. And upon his rock I will build my church.
I entered a large sanctuary with huge stain glass windows and stylish architecture tastefully balanced with traditional Lutheran art. I took my pew seat and soon was listening to Rick preach from a pulpit designed to resemble a ship’s bow; above it was a sail crafted in bronze. A few feet behind the pulpit was a wall of native stone that encircled most of the sanctuary. The altar was wide and deep, with a backdrop of a huge, triangular-shaped stain glass window depicting Jesus Christ as the Good Shepherd. (This window was the inspiration for an oil painting done by my first and late artist wife, Judith Glover-Schwarz, which remains hanging in the church.) On the altar in the style of the St. Peter statue outside, stood a life-size cross.
Robed in a white vestment and a stole (colored according to the church season), Rick preached vigorously, often punctuating phrases with his palms aimed at the congregation. Listening to his voice coming from the bow-shape
For the next eight years, Rick captained his ship of Lutherans, providing leadership for a crew of 24 that included three associate pastors and a handful of administrators of the church’s K-8 school. “The people responded to a Bible of hope and healing,” Rick would proclaim. “It was a time of peace and harmony with staff and the Board of Elders. The elders were active in inviting people to pay attention to my key messages. To those who did not attend church that day, I wrote a letter that encouraged them to attend next time. Thus, many recommitted their lives to Christ.”
The St. Peter school continued to win state-wide awards for quality education and for sportsmanship. Rick also saw to it that a wealthy member funded the St. Peter public television program, “Crossing the Finish Line.” I was fortunate to emcee and facilitate its lively discussions among church members that included teachers, teenagers, mothers and tradesmen. They answered my questions candidly about how God was working in their daily lives. During this phase of Rick’s ministry, our friendship was cemented, and our wives eventually join our friendship.
“Pastor Richter was one of my favorite people,” said the Rev. Rick Lineberger, who spent two years as an associate pastor with Rick at St. Peter. “I remember him as very fair and attentive with everyone, including the church administration. What he said you could pretty well consider it an absolute. A lot of pastors go with wherever the wind is blowing the hardest, but not him.”
Lineberger, then a seminary senior when he first met Richter at a church in St. Louis, had been impressed with Rick’s “zeal for the lost, for those who did not know Christ.” When St. Peter was scouting for a new executive pastor, he recommended Rick. "Many times, Rick and I had a good chuckle together---the kind that keeps the soul refreshed, you know.”
When I interviewed Lineberger a long time ago, he laughed repeatedly when recalling an event where he and Rick were having a meal in a dining room filled with German-speaking longshoremen. Rick, who spoke German, was curious about a phrase in German which he had just heard a waitress speak to Lineberger, who was trying to learn the German language. The phrase was I love you, young lady. Lineberger, proud of his new language acquisition and wanting to impress his pastor as well as the nearby longshoremen, burst out mistakenly in German, "I love to go with loose women!” The dockworkers suddenly stopped eating and stared at Lineberger (about to be totally embarrassed by his translation error) for several seconds before the audience was composed enough to resume eating.
Rick’s daily leadership was branded often with a broad smile and behavior that gave voice to a soft heart. He had a reputation for wisely counseling stressed-out people with " try cruising speed”. But he had retained some of his gentle, farm boy innocence which, unfortunately, made him at times vulnerable to criticism at church council meetings where, like his father, he sometimes struggled for a peaceful resolution to conflicts. Years later, however, Rick told me that many St. Peter members who were inactive when he first arrived had since “re-committed their lives to Christ.”
“Would We Still Be Friends If I Became Catholic?”
Though my friendship with Rick went beyond the polite boundaries of pastor-worshiper protocol, I saw a future stumbling block that stressed me. I had been a widower for a year and had recently married a Catholic woman and joined a Catholic church. I was acutely aware of the history of disagreements--some vitriolic -- between Catholics and Lutherans over dogma about heavenly salvation, the prominent role of the Virgin Mother, the Pope's authority, and adherence to prayers and sacraments. Likely, no Lutheran pastor nor Catholic priest could ever forget the denominational divide caused by the Reformation almost 500 years ago.
I confronted my friendship problem one evening while Rick and Mary and Mary Alice and I were at the Ravinia Festival Park listening to Tony Bennett lose his heart to San Francisco. I nervously delayed the inevitable for at least 30 minutes, then at last turned to Rick and said, “Rick, would we still be friends if I became Catholic? ” I was prepared for a long, face-frowning reply.
But Rick quickly turned to me, smiled for several seconds, and said, thoughtfully, “Of course, Bob, the best of friends.” Then he returned his attention to Tony Bennett.
For future decades our foursome (and, occasionally, with some mutual friends and Rick’s children ) shared holiday celebrations, walks through the Chicago Botanical Gardens, dinners out, a country drive here and there, and quiet evenings in the Richter home playing dominoes and the no-brainer-nerve-calming card game (imported from Silo country) called Skip-Bo, Rick’s favorite. After that, Mary--always the consummate baker--would spread the kitchen table with cookies and ice cream. We’d finish the evening in the livening room chitchatting with lots of laughter. Religion was seldom a topic. It seemed that our hearts and minds at times needed a rest from religion, though I like to believe, that as bona fide Christians, our faith influenced all we did whether at play or at work.
Though Rick could never be a street-corner, Bible-thumping evangelist, yet at the church pulpit he was persuasive as a Billy Graham and riveting as a captain of a battleship. His preaching also brought to mind that Biblical encounter between the disciple Philip who once spotted a eunuch who had paused his chariot in the desert. The eunuch was reading but not understanding the Bible. Philip ran up to him and asked, “Do you understand what your are reading?” When the eunuch replied, “How could I unless someone guides me?” Philip then convincingly preached the Gospel message to the man and baptized him. The eunuch rode off rejoicing.
In 1996, Rick and I began meeting twice, sometimes three times, weekly at a local McDonald’s. We never dressed up. We’d spend an hour over coffee, he, with his usual pancakes, and I with an apple pie pastry. The privacy we wanted vanished when our fervor got a bit too loud with opinions about national politics, the changing American culture, or, Rick's favorite: last night's Bulls' basketball or Black Hawk scores. I don't think we ever debated--or had a need to-- those hot-button theological questions that Lutherans and Catholics disagree about. We also talked about our gardens at home or the way the Siberian Peapod tree on Rick’s front lawn had been manicured perfectly by his wife. And there was that honeysuckle which adorned his patio trellis ( I thought he'd write a sonnet about it, but he never did) . Occasionally, we said a word or two about what the Stock Market was doing. Both of us had a small investment in it.
Between 2012 and 2016 I made notes on some of our coffee talks . [ A few of which I include later in this biography. ]
Rick and the Koran, and Sept. 11, 2001
“I am very concerned that Christians are not
sufficiently equipped to meet the challenge of Islam”
Rick's reaction to the reported 2,996 people killed at the World Trade Center in NYC and near the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, had penetrated his soul. “I knew than I needed to learn much more about the Islam religion and why 9/11 happened,” he wrote me in an email. He began to study the Qur’an, and, after ten years of research, wrote the book, Comparing the Qur’an and the Bible: What They Really Say About Jesus, Jihad, and More (Richter, Rick, 4th edition, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI, 2011). “My goal was to help draw the Muslim and others to Christ, being helped by the undeserved, unconditional and unexpected love of God in Jesus Christ,” he told me.
critical differences of the Islamic faith
His research was aided by his friendship with the Rev. Hesham Shehad , a former militant Muslim and later a working journalist in Jordan. [Hesham today is an ordained Lutheran minister at the Salam Arabic Church in Lombard, Illinois.] The 256-page book was reviewed by “Christianity Today” and “World Magazine” and described as “an unprecedented collection of [1,500] passages and doctrines of both faiths...an indispensable collection of accurate, understandable, information taken directly from the primary source books of both faiths.
Rick, so it seemed to all, experienced a second childhood again and again, especially with games. He would pretend to be a dog and crawled inside and then outside a large cardboard box, growling. “I was so excited when once he came out of the box as a puppy,” Faith said laughing. After supper, Rick would have the girls stand up and dance and sing a home-spun ditty called Three Little Crackers, Dance All Day! Just as memorable to Faith and Beth, and Hope were the family camping trips to the Black Hills, Grand Tetons, and Washington, D.C.
One way the girls showed their affection for their father was when his church office was almost adjacent to their home in Lake City, and they would bring him coffee during the day and Faith would sharpen his pencils. Did the Richter children ever need discipline? Faith laughed at the question with, “Yeah...I mean, look what he had to work with--me. I had a lot to learn. I was given a book about the strong-willed child.” Their mother Mary expressed her love with cooking, sowing outfits for her daughters, and working as a hospital nurse and insurance company clerk during two of Rick’s assignments.
Though the book in an academic sense is a balanced comparison between the Bible and the Qur’an, a few readers thought Rick was sympathetic to the Islamic faith. Rick passionately disagreed and asserted that his book “is an objective comparison between the two faiths and that both Muslims and Christians can benefit from reading it.” He believes today that Christians should share their faith with Muslims with “gentleness and respect” and that God’s “great love yearns to reach the heart of the person who is Muslim.”
As for Rick’s research and scholarship, the Rev. Dan P. Gilbert, former president of the Northern Illinois District of the Missouri Synod, wrote that the book “will be both a great help to those seeking spiritual truth and also a deep comfort to those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of the Nations.” Wrote the missionary Rev. Peter Conwell Richards: “I used it [as a manual] in Mombasa, Kenya , and elsewhere with excellent results. The clarity of common misunderstandings of the Bible exhibited in the Qur'an is clearly delineated and also are the many misunderstandings of what Muslims truly believe are quite clearly outlined as well.”
Since then, several radio stations country-wide have interviewed Rick about his book, which has also been the focus of several workshops he has conducted about Islam and Christianity.
“I look forward to witnessing to Muslims every day of my life,” Rick said at one of his presentations with me at his side. He related to his audience the first time he talked to a Muslim was with a young man who was dating one of his daughters. The man’s parents had invited Rick and Mary to a picnic.
Rick does, however, have a low tolerance for any Muslim who states that the Islamic faith does not allow violence, especially to people innocent of criminal behavior. In a letter to a newspaper editor to affirm this, he quoted from the Qur'an (Sura 5:33): Whoever kills a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it is as if he had killed all mankind. “Thus the Qur’an allows revenge killing and murder for corruption, which includes homosexuality, abortion, or immodesty,” Rick wrote.
Many of these misleading beliefs, he says, come from well-meaning American citizens, both Muslims and Christians.
“I look forward to witnessing to Muslims in my everyday life,” he told me. “I met a Muslim from Pakistan when I was having a CT scan. We engaged in a cordial conversation. When I politely asked him if he were a Muslim, he answered yes. When I told him I had been reading the Qur’an, he asked me: ‘What have you learned?’ I told him I have learned that the Qur’an says many things, but one thing puzzled me: It says that Jesus was not actually crucified, that it only ‘seemed’ that way’ ”.
“That is right,’ he said. I took the opportunity then to tell my new Muslim acquaintance that, to me, the cross is the plus sign of God’s love in Jesus as the Lamb of God.
“With that, our conversation needed to end, for my body was now passing through the CAT scanner. But what an opportunity and a privilege I had! But I am very concerned that Christians are not sufficiently equipped to meet the challenge of Islam.”
Grant, between them, and Ried in rear
Coffee Talks at McDonald’s...May 8, 2012
Richter (he’s sad): I miss her very much
Me: That 85-year-old-woman?
R: Before she’d died we sang “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”. She looked at me feebly. She had been a great blessing to her family, Bob…(He hands me a photograph of her.) So alive and vibrant.
Me: Maybe you saw the face of Jesus in her?
R: I think maybe I did.
Circa May, 2012
Rick had recently turned 80 and had recently retired and relocated to the St. Peter Lutheran Church in nearby Schaumburg. As he spoke, his voice was choky and his eyes quite moist. " I've lost energy," he told me. "
His prostate removal a few years ago and the resulting radiation treatments had sapped a lot from him. He seldom had a good night’s sleep. Nevertheless, he was still counseling people at church, and twice weekly was bringing communion, the Gospel message, and hope to five or six elderly shut-ins. Often he told me of the tragedies he had ministered to through his semi-retirement years as he went to homes where oldsters were barely alive with "end-of-the-journey spirits and burned-out minds and bodies. The thing is, I have to cut back. But I can’t. They need me so, and the other three pastors don’t have time. And, Bob, our senior pastor is leaving, and we haven’t been able to find a replacement."
Anguish showed on his face. In all the years I had known this servant of God, I had until now never heard him share such personal, intimate thoughts.
I knew this man was a giant of strength and virtue compared to me, and I tried to pray silently for comforting words for my friend but, regretfully, could only manage to say, “Rick, you know you’re not indispensable.”
R. Oh, no. It’s not that! It’s just that I love what I do so much. I love bringing our Lord’s Word to these people. I just don’t have it anymore…
His eyes moistened again…
...Something else, though, Bob. I need cataract surgery on both eyes. I’d have to give up my house calls for two, maybe three months…
We both stayed silent for several moments...It was time for us to get home to our wives and do domestic chores. I got the last word in: “I know how you can save some energy. Let me chauffeur you to your house calls.” My friend declined.
The Last Drive to Silo
On a summer night in 2007, Rick and wife Mary drove all day to Silo. Rick’s boyhood church there had asked him to preach a sermon commemorating the church’s 145th anniversary. Rick had joyously anticipated this day to see faces of friends, some now very old, as well as the farm land he once plowed with his brother and father.
An unprecedented 20 inches of rain had fallen in southeastern Minnesota , and leaving the motel that morning, Rick was uneasy about the short drive to the Emmanuel Lutheran Church. “Everything around Silo was under water,” he told me in our interview. “Some people were on roofs, some homes had been carried away by flood waters.”
Though police had closed all roads, Rick drove around the barricades . It was an unlikely maneuver for this Lutheran pastor raised with a no-nonsense tradition of Lutheran law and order. But likely he would have waded barefoot through flood waters to the church rather than miss preaching to this congregation which, through the years, had sprouted 88 members into schoolteachers or clergy.
Driving home the next day, Rick and Mary reflected on their church years in Arlington Heights during the 1960’s and 70’s. Being yesterday in that Silo church listening to that hymn so often heard at St. Peter--"Holy, Holy, Holy, God Almighty"--now brought to Mary’s mind the thought that, just as the people of Silo had been recently blessed by hearing God’s Word, so had thousands been strengthened by the many radio broadcasts of her husband’s sermons.
For the next seven years I was a busy volunteer at St. Peter, a beautiful and large Missouri Synod Lutheran church in an upper middle-class suburb of Chicago. I joined its leadership council, taught Biblical life application to children, produced the church’s first local television program, and conducted an adult Bible class called “Making the Bible Come Alive.” Working together like this made my friendship with the Rev. Eldor “Rick” Richter--I believe-- eternal.
IV Crossing the Finish Line
Dear God, thank you for being my Father. What I lack in love for you, I ask for your grace to show with my obedience. What You want, I want.
In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty;
in everything, love
FROM RICK
On Nov. 15, 1997, Rick began a well-needed semi-retirement in nearby Schaumburg and became a part-time assistant pastor at a Lutheran church also named St. Peter. It was a snowy, misty late winter afternoon when he first stepped foot on its 20 acres of land and gazed at not one but three Lutheran churches: the current church, a former, now rarely used church with a cemetery at its rear, and a vacated church still standing as a small box-shaped structure resembling a farmer’s shed where German immigrant settlers came to worship in the early 1830’s.
Rick had recently read some words of the church’s history: Through the years, new buildings have been built, pastors and congregational members have come and gone, but one thing has remained...the Gospel.
During his 17 years there, he organized an evangelism commission, led marriage enrichment programs, and lectured to audiences on Biblical topics such “Life After This Life.” His passion for preaching would never leave him.
He also resumed a rigorous schedule of making house calls to shut- ins. I accompanied him one afternoon on four calls: one with a couple in their 80’s; the wife was hard of hearing and her husband had to use a walker. The husband had been motivated to build his own home here by his memory from the Great Depression when, at age four, he and his parents came home one day to discover all of their possessions had been confiscated from their home due to unsatisfied debt and were now piled high on the sidewalk to be taken away by a collection agency.
Our next visit was with a bed-ridden wife on painkillers for multiple sclerosis. Her husband each Sunday put her on a wheelchair and took her to church. Another visit was at a long-term rehab center, where Rick sat on the bed with a 48-year-old man, still coping with his father’s death six years ago. The man was weeping continuously because a staff member had reprimanded him for leaving the premises without permission. Rick consoled the man, turning now and then to the man’s fiancée sitting on a nearby chair. Lastly, we visited a former St. Peter school teacher now in her 80’s, a woman with a sense of humor Rick encouraged. Like all the shut-ins on this day, Rick assured her how much God loved her; then hugged her.
" He was a pastor's pastor," said David Hudak, now the retried pastor of the Schaumburg church. " I appreciated being able to talk with him when I had concerns of a personal nature. My wife and I often said that Rick and his wife Mary were the perfect example of a pastor and a pastor's wife. "
***
But now, after almost 57 years of doctoring people spiritually, and after that strength-draining bout with prostate cancer followed by 36 radiation treatments, my friend’s energy shifted to low gear. He told me he felt “terribly boxed in and confined.”. Then he remembered how Jesus was "confined " when an infant, and said "if God could tolerate that, so could I.” In August of 2015, Rick retired-- Well, sort of…
April 18, 2014
We were talking about a 20-year-old man who, for some unknown reason had taken an intense dislike for Rick at a church meeting. He had scolded Rick for calling this meeting, saying it wasn’t necessary.
Richter: I had negative thoughts about this man all this last week
Me: And?
R. Well, Bob, I dealt with it by recalling a Bible verse about forgiveness. And I asked God to forgive me for harboring negative thoughts.
We got up. Rick headed straight for the door, as about to preach a sermon . I heard him telling himself , “Keep looking straight ahead at Jesus, not at the safety net below. Keep going!”
May 14, 2014
I had shared a “spiritual” problem with Rick, one which he eliminated with a few truth-penetrating words.
I had told Rick of my occasional fear of backsliding, of giving- in to what is commonly described as that “old man” or our original “sin nature” in all of us. I said I never wanted again to follow any “rabbit trail” that led nowhere in life.
Rick (smiling): Sounds like you may have some scruples, Bob.
Me: You mean I feel guilty when there’s no need to, like stupidly demanding to be perfect. I do know a guy like that. He compulsively blames himself for this and that.
Rick: Maybe. I’ve know a few whose life was made miserable by that kind of thinking. Intelligent people, too. Good Christians, some. Always apologizing to God. I don’t know if they have an overly sensitive conscience or can’t believe God really loves them.
Me: (After a long pause) Rick, you ever get spiritually dry?
Rick: (laughing) If you mean moody or just having a bad day---we all do. And, just between you and me, sometimes I think about some a recent sin of mine.
Me: (sarcastically): Not you?
Rick: (finishing his coffee and rising from his chair) Just keep walking on that razor edge of faith in Christ...and, Bob, read Psalm 103 and then 42.
I did. It was good medicine.
May 15, 2015
Rick had a love affair with newly blossomed trees in springtime. On this day, I believe he spent 15 or 20 minutes talking about his beautiful but dying magnolia tree, which a day ago had blossomed back to life in his backyard. He had been diligently feeding it a nutrient for two years. Our conversation [slightly edited here] went like this:
Rick: It blossomed because I had been feeding it iron.
Me: Iron?
Rick: (really enthused now) Yes. Someone two years ago told me that if I didn’t want that tree to die, I’d better feed it some iron... Then, this morning my next door neighbor tells me her elderly husband is being cranky and refused to take the vitamins his doctor prescribed for him. Before I came here to meet you, Bob, I picked some blossoms from that Magnolia tree and took them over to my neighbor, a self-admitted atheist. He too had a Magnolia tree, also dying, in his yard. The husband came to the door this time and I handed the blossoms to him. “Look,” I told him. “look what my nutrient has done to make these blossoms so beautiful! ” He was unmoved.
Rick said he never knew the fate of his neighbor’s ailing Magnolia tree, but soon after that his neighbor lay dying in a hospital. Rick visited him and learned that the dying man had recently told a visiting priest to go to hell. Rick, wanting to give his neighbor some peace before dying, spoke tenderly to him…"I hope and pray that if and when your last hour comes, dear neighbor, you will want to meet the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world.”
“I miss him now,” Rick said.
***
signing event of his book about the Koran
At age 81, Rick began using a cane, yet never ceased--as the cliché says--to walk his talk, to comfort a friend lost in a storm of doubt. I believe my friend never was self-absorbed with the impact his words had on people. He related to me an incident of interacting with a young Afro-American clerk in a bookstore. In a casual, non-religious conversation, she mentioned to him that she worshipped the ancient Egyptian sun god Ra [or Re], adding that she wanted nothing to do with Christianity because of “all the Americans who once profited from the slave trade.”
Rick made little reply but went home, did some research and returned a week later to the book store and politely told this clerk about the white, former slave ship master, John Newton, being converted to Christianity and becoming an Anglican clergyman who wrote one of the most spiritually inspiring church hymns of all time: Amazing Grace. The clerk abruptly told Rick she didn’t want to hear another word from him and walked away. But glancing at her , Rick was filled with hope when he saw she appeared to be deep in a bothersome thought.
For recreation, Rick watched a televised Cubs game, the evening news, and, for laughs, the Andy Griffith show (actor Don Knotts made my friend laugh often). In summer, he’d go fishing at a nearby Forest Preserve Pond. (I once joined him there; we never caught a fish.) I saw his spirits buoyed when he and his wife would visit our home and Rick never failed to gaze up at my neighbor’s very tall elm tree outside, as if seeing it for the first time. He'd often exclaim in awe, “Just look at that tree! Look at it, will you!”
One of the few times I saw Rick really angry was after he had read a Newsweek magazine article I had given him. He had read the front cover story written by a celebrated author who repeatedly questioned and ridiculed the Bible. The author claimed that the Bible contained inaccuracies. Rick said that though the writer’s research had been laborious , it came from biased and non-scholarly sources. Rick wrote the magazine’s editor-in-chief a long letter to that effect, ending it with, “By ridiculing a reader’s belief in the Bible, you have added to the secularism of our day. I pray that those who are upset by Mr. ________’s article and his ridiculing of certain segments of the Christian faith, that they might seek for themselves the wonderful truth concerning Jesus Christ by reading the Gospel of John...Peace and Joy in the Lord, Rev. E. W. Richter.”
My friend’s heart-deep relationships with hundreds of individuals during his life, I believe, salted and peppered his own life. Those relationships included eleven men with whom Rick met for Bible study on Thursday evenings. Ernie Toborg, one of the men, sent me this email: “Rick’s energy and love for our Lord and savior is like no other. It is said that in life you make many acquaintances, but if you’ve made one close friend, you’re blessed! " Toborg added, “In 1992, when my nephew, his wife, and niece were killed in a private plane crash in Pittsburg, Rick went over to my sister’s home and led everyone in a memorial service. And in 2005, when I had six-way heart bypass surgery and the doctors were not optimistic about my survival because of other complications, Rick was there praying with me--and here I am! Rick, you’re the BEST!”
In 2015, there were times when I saw my friend nearing the crossing of his finish line. He had mostly retired from the pulpit he loved dearly. His aging I hated to see. He looked haggard. Daily obedience for so many years to the will of God had taken its toll, yet it never impeded his outreach of comfort-giving love to family ,which included occasional drives to Iowa and Wisconsin to visit with daughters Beth and Faith.
Rick and Mary's 60 years of marriage .
Granddaughter Rose is at center, her
mother Faith is at far left . Behind her
is sister Beth
Sept. 2, 2016, was indeed a much-needed happy day for the entire Richter family. They had not herded together since before December 2014, and now all were in a private restaurant room for Rick and Mary’s 60th wedding anniversary. Included in the celebration were their daughters Hope from Grayslake, Illinois; Beth from Iowa City; and Faith from Madison, Wisconsin.
Faith had this to say about the event: “It was no small feat. We laughed and Mom and Dad kissed and laughed and served each other bites of cake. We laughed some more and all caught up with each other’s lives. Mostly we celebrated the gift of Mom and Dad’s 60 years of marriage , a very loving, loyal, cherished and blessed marriage. Words from the Biblical Song of Ruth was their wedding text and solo song. Afterwards, Mom and Dad came over to my place and I served them a Chocolate Groom’s Cake. Then they left for their second honeymoon in a secluded, untold place (well, kind of).”
***
It was time to tell Rick I wanted to write his life story, either as a book or for my blog, now being read in 12 countries. “I want to write all about you, a special, a different kind of minister,” I told him. Rick frowned and rolled his head as if wishing I had not said this. I wanted everybody in both the Christian and non-Christian world to read about Rick's life, and so I pressed him: “There’s so much to tell about you, and give new life to those unanswered to questions about the spiritual life and how to form a real-life relationship with Jesus. If you don’t let me, write about you, no one ever will!”
My friend turned away, saying softly, “I’m just happy that I survived. I did what was expected of me”...Then, almost pleading, he said, “But, Bob, I’m ORDINARY!”
***
Rick consented eventually to an interview to answer some of my questions:
Considering the radical changes our culture has undergone since you first pastored a church, what advice might you have today for young pastors?
“Often churches face financial problems. In attempting to raise funds, we should remember what Jesus said: When you give alms, sound not the trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by man….Matt 6:3. My appeal to the people has always been to give to the Lord personally, because He first loved us. Then people will respond generously.
Any advice to the parents whose child is about to become a high school student?
“Since I had a grandchild in high school, I understood the concern of parents. I would hope that the parents have practiced their faith with love, forgiveness and discipline; that they have had family devotions and would continue attending worship services as a family. Parents should teach children to exercise personal responsibility more --within boundaries. Talk with them. Listen to them and continue to show them acts of love, forgiveness and kindness. Go camping together and enjoy the beauty of God’s creation. Attend their school activities and take them to their favorite restaurant. Stay close to one another and to the Lord.”
How has your marriage to Mary benefitted your many years of ministry?
“Mary has been the most wonderful thing that has happened to me. She is a joy to live with. She is a woman of faith and love, cheerful and positive. She has taught the Word of God to children and adults, conducted devotions, served as a Christian Growth Chairman, visited the sick, fed the needy, baby sat, made evangelism calls, served at suppers, funerals and weddings, cleaned the church, sang in choirs, audited books, served as secretary to the pastor and worked as a hospital nurse. Above all she has been a wonderful wife and mother to our children, a godly woman who has served her Lord and shown Christ’s love to us as a family and to people consistently.”
Generally speaking, what, if any, reforms do you believe should be made today in Christian church throughout America? In the world?
“The church needs to be a church. The Greek world for church is “ecclesia”---those called out of this world and into a new fellowship in Christ in faith and love. We are to be in the world, but not of the world. Christ calls us to be a salt and leaven in the culture. Don’t redefine the church to fit the culture, but know that your identity is in Christ and, that as God’s own people, you may declare the wonderful deeds of Him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light...1 Pet. 2:9. Do not forsake the gathering together in prayer, in Bible Study, and in fellowship. Care for the poor and needy as unto Christ. Remember you are Christ’s little flock and stay close to the Good Shepherd who lay down His life for the sheep...John 10:15. He says, Fear not little flock. It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom...Luke 12:32. "
Regarding the spread of Islam throughout the country, might you suggest an attitude we should have about American Muslims?
“Islam is growing by leaps and bounds in the world’s population, while the population of the Christian world is decreasing by comparison. Muslims are very committed to their religion and are pressing the church as they did in the Middle Ages when they captured Constantinople and almost overran Europe. While the government, as God’s left hand, has the responsibility to resist the Jihadist movement, the individual Christian should have the attitude that he should give an answer for the hope which he or she has… and to do it with gentleness and respect...1 Peter 3:15. The Allah of Islam is quite different from the Lord God Yahweh, the Great I Am. Allah’s love is conditional. God’s love in Christ is unexpected, underserved and unconditional. How wonderful is that! A pastor’s goal and the attitude of all Christians should be to draw the Muslim to Christ by the kind of same love.”
What milestones in your life have most shaped it?
“As a child I went with my parents to mission festivals. Four congregations in our community would rotate in having their one mission festival on a Sunday during the summer. There would be morning, afternoon, and perhaps evening services and lunch served by the women of the host congregation. Guest pastors were invited to preach on the need to go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel. The need to tell others about Christ was wonderfully motivating and instilled in me a great love for those who do not know Christ.”
Is there anything you’d like people to remember you for when you’re in heaven?
“That I loved the Lord and loved people and that I was a man of God who proclaimed the love and comfort of Jesus Christ.”
V A Pastor’s Peace in Twilight Years
Is it not true, Father, that our deepest yen is to love
and be love; thank You for sending us your Son,
who made us free to say no to all that is wrong
and evil and free to say yes to all that is good.
Sometimes I’d pick up Rick when his wife had the car for shopping; , he and I would take our carryout coffee and go sit on a park bench. We’d spend maybe an hour talking about some of President Trump's policies and also about what God might have had in mind by allowing the pandemic to exist. Rick’s reply to the latter was, “To make us more mindful of Him and the End Times.” I was prompted one morning to ask, “Rick, have you ever had to learn something the hard way?” His reply: “Yes, that life is not all about me.” Did he have a favorite sermon? “All of them”, he said.
Rick was 88 and I 86, and our minds were moving slower. On that park bench there were long moments of silence. Unlike me, Rick’s silence came with an almost constant smile. He was an audience-of-one, obviously pleased with the dynamic of every human activity he was seeing in this park: children on swings and chasing each other; an oddly dressed man reading a newspaper a few feet from us and an elderly woman holding tightly to the book she was reading; a young man and his girlfriend holding hands as they strolled past us, saying "hello". Yes, my good friend was obviously at peace--with an active mind.
Knowing of the many struggles Rick had weathered, some like a soldier in combat, I found it hard to believe that he could still savor our polarized world with a God-blessed attitude. God had blessed him with. Reflecting late that night on my friend's life in which he had remained firm and steadfast, made me think of the Biblical Joshua who, heeding God's command to remain firm and steadfast in battle, enabled him to tumble down those walls of Jericho.
My closing thought to Richter’s biography is about a hero of his; he is Chris Klein, who was born with cerebral palsy that left him unable to speak and or have control of any muscle except that which moved his big toe. Chris has used this toe to write about inspirational topics now read worldwide. Rick once quoted Chris to me: “God gave me this body, and I consider it a gift, " Chris had written. "It is a gift because I can encourage others with it.” Then Rick looked hard at me and said, “Because Chris is so weak, the life of Christ is accented in him...So, Bob, when we are weak and say I’m useless and helpless, we’ll think of Chris Kline...We will, won’t we?”
A bruised reed He will not break, and
a smoldering wick He will not snuff out .
(Matthew 12:20 )
The End
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